Kona service tomorrow
for Rose Fujimori

Rose Mui-Kwai Akana Fujimori, 67, a retired unit manager with the Department of the Interior and a tireless civic volunteer, died Friday in Kona Community Hospital.

"She was a special one," said niece Brenda Lee.

Born in Honaunau on the Big Island, she graduated from Kamehameha School for Girls in 1946 and returned to Kona to work in her family's craft business. She signed on with the National Park Service at Pu'uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park in 1964 as a secretary and quickly began "giving the commands," Lee recalled.

She was assigned to the Pu'ukohala Heiau National Historic Site in Kawaihae in the 1970s and became unit manager in 1988.

Her subsequent volunteer work included stints as a cultural demonstrator and librarian for Pu'uhonua O Honaunau. She was a member of Kanaueue Kumiai, Central Kona Union Church, the Kona Planning Council of the Hawaiian Health Care Task Force, the Na Koa Planning Committee, the Kona Historical Society, the state Council on Burials, the Kona Community Cemetery Association -- Tong Wo and Palama in Kona.

She served as an officer of the Kona Hawaiian Civic Club, The Ahahui Ka'ahumanu o Kona, Na Aikane o Pu'ukohola Heaiau National Historical Site, National Association of Retired Federal Employees and in advisory capacities with the Kealakekua Bay State Historical Park, University of Hawaii, Punana Leo o Kona, Amy Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden, Kamakana Playground-Friends Higashihara Park, the American Heart Association, West Hawaii Division.